What’s, why’s, and what-do-we-do-about-it’s
g.syunyaev@vanderbilt.edu
October 29, 2025
Personal history
I study when and why media persuades in autocracies (esp. Russia) and beyond
I teach
Includes spin (framing/priming) and censorship/self-censorship (Roberts 2018, Princeton)
From hard propaganda (ideology, fear) to soft propaganda (competence, entertainment) (Guriev & Treisman 2022, Princeton)
Persuasive content must be plausible and low-key
Dominating tactics crowd out alternatives and potentially lead to apathy (especially, flooding or bots)
Other paths to “success”:
1930s: Radio Propagation in Weimar Germany and its Effects on Voting for Nazi Party (Adena et al. 2015, AER)
1936-42: Father Coughlin’s Effects on FDR Votes and Sales of US War Bonds (Wang 2021, JPE)
1943-45: Italians’ Exposure to BBC Radio and Resistance to Nazi Occupation during WWII (Gagliarducci et al. 2021, )
1994: Exposure to Hutu Nationalist Radio and Participation in Rwandan Genocide (Yanagizawa-Drott 2014, QJE)
2012: Random Radio Distribution and Exposure to Radio during the Mali Coup (Bleck & Michelitch 2017, JOP)
2014: Exposure to Russian TV and Ukrainian Elections in 2014 (Peisakhin & Rozenas 2018, AJPS)
2018: Expansion of Transmission of Independent Radio Station in Tanzania Green et al. 2024, JOP
Precincts within radius of Nazi controlled radio broadcasts were more likely to vote for Hitler, join the Nazi Party and engage in anti-Jewish deportations prior to 1942. But the effects were moderated by past anti-Semitic attitudes.
Leveraging variation in topography (but controlling for distance) identifies negative (-2.4 p.p.) effects on FDR votes which survived even after broadcast going away from public
Using sunspot activity to approximate variation in BBC radio reception finds important role of radio in motivating resistance but no long-lasting anti-Nazi effects
Topographic variation in exposure to RTLM responsible for roughly 10% of killings, especially from violence requiring coordination
Radio exposure boosted national identity but did not elevate explicit support for the junta
Areas with higher cross-border exposure to Russian state media had higher support for pro-Russian parties, but no effect on turnout
Effects on political interest and knowledge about domestic politics but sporadic changes in attitudes on a range of gender issues (covered by radio)
Media literacy: reduces misperceptions in controlled settings (Badrinathan 2021, APSR) but could not be scalable and hard to assess
Alternative information: independent TV/radio shifts attitudes and votes (Enikolopov et al. 2011, AER; Gagliarducci, Nannicini & Paserman 2020, AEJ:Applied; Broockman and Kalla 2025, JOP)
Nature can help: crises can trigger censorship circumvention (Chang et al. 2022, PNAS)
Critical thinking: analytic thinking improves discernment but effects could be modest and short-lived (Nyhan et al. 2021, PNAS; Erlich et al. 2023, PolPsych; Shirikov & Syunyaev 2025, WP)
(Blair, Gottlieb, Nyhan et al. 2024, COP)
Patterns rhyme: slanted media persuades and polarizes.
But institutions and plural media markets blunt single narrative dominance (Guess 2020, BJPS; Guess 2021, AJPS) \(\Rightarrow\) motivated reasoning is more important!
Summary: mechanisms overlap; constraints and intensity differ and complicate the study
Propaganda (and misinformation) can be effective, but the effects are not as clear-cut
We know little about what exactly works about propaganda \(\Rightarrow\) not clear how to counter it (both design and targeting)
Open questions: